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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  December 10, 2012 7:00pm-8:00pm PST

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clinton tax rates. there's no shame in being wrong. people get stuff wrong all the time. when you do get stuff wrong, though, it's worth in thing so you can stop being wrong about that thing if it ever comes up again. now that we are considering using clinton's policies again, it's important to remember who was wrong and what the effect will be of those policies. if they are making the same arguments that proved to be wrong the last time we tried this, well, then the role of the media should be able to.that out loudly, even on sunday morning, which happened this weekend on "meet the press" because lawrence was there. and now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell, which you should watch. have a great night. tonight, who in america is betting on john boehner in his tax showdown with president obama? exactly no one. not even rush limbaugh.
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>> i don't think there's a republican alive who could stop what's going to happen. >> with the fiscal cliff just 22 days away. >> we're down to the final three weeks. >> the president is on the move. >> i'm willing to compromise a little bit. >> president obama on the ground in michigan. >> i will work with republicans. >> delivering a speech at an engine manufacturing plant. >> i'm willing to compromise a little bit. >> i'm willing to compromise a little bit. >> they are ready to make a deal. >> they are ready to make a deal on tax rates. >> republicans know that they have to give on taxes. >> i don't think there's a republican alive who can stop what is happening. >> senator corker has nailed this one. >> the leverage is going to shift. >> you have to have leverage. >> we don't have the leverage. the power isn't there. >> could a secret meeting seal the deal when it come to the fiscal cliff? the white house says it can happen. >> president obama and speaker boehner sit down at the white house. >> their first one on one in three weeks. >> the heavy lifting is going to have to happen this week. >> if this week goes bad -- >> this week is going to be a
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critical week. >> even if the speaker and president are cuddling in the lincoln bedroom -- >> i think everybody needs to cool their jets. >> that's not going to get us a deal. >> raising taxing will hurt the economy. >> your stuff stink. we don't want it. >> if anybody out there who is, quote, rich doesn't think that their taxes go up, drink are on me. >> republicans are totally over the barrel. >> raising tax rates will hurt the economy. >> we'll push it all the way to the senate and then we'll lose. with 22 days until we take that first step off the fiscal curb, president obama traveled to michigan to keep the pressure on republicans in congress. >> if congress doesn't act soon, meaning in the next few weeks, starting on january 1st, everybody's going to see their income taxes go up.
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it's true. y'all don't like that, huh? >> no. >> we can solve this problem. all congress needs to do is pass the law that would prevent a tax hike on the first $250,000 of everybody's income. everybody. that means -- [ applause ] >> republican now admit that president obama has won the debate on tax rates. >> my view is, get the tax issue off the table. it's the weakest one for the republicans. >> boehner does not have unity behind him. so it looks as though his path is going to be to concede on rates. >> i guess what i'm saying is, i don't think there's a republican alive who can stop what's going to happen. we don't have the leverage. the power isn't there. >> republican lawmakers continued to undermine speaker boehner's negotiating strength. >> a lot of people are putting forth a theory and i actually think it has merit where you go
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ahead and give the president the 2% increase that he's talking about, the rate increase on the top 2%. >> will i accept a tack increase as a part of a deal to actually solve our problems? >> no republican makes more sense than the original house defek for on tax rates, congressman tom cole. >> they go off automatically. i can tell you that the sun is going to come up in the east tomorrow and set in the west. that doesn't mean i had a darn thing to do with it coming up or coming down. those rates are going to go up. we either act now to keep them from going up from as many people as possible or they'll go up on everyone. >> a spokesman for house speaker boehner tells nbc news that negotiations between the white house and republican policy staffers continued today. president obama and speaker boehner met privately yesterday. nbc news first read team makes this point. if the plan is to get something passed by friday, december 21, right before the christmas holiday, then the legislation has to be written by december
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18th and that means that obama and boehner must reach a deal by december 14th, 15th if there is going to be a deal. so the time for posturing and pr is over. a new political poll shows that likely voters support the president's tax increase on the upper brackets. 60% favor raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000. 64% favor raising tacks on large corporations. 33 oppose. the poll asked likely voters, do you believe that if we raise taxes on households that earn over $250,000 per year, it will have a negative impact on the economy. 38% said yes. 58% got it right and said no. today president obama outlined the deficit reduction legislation he would sign into law. >> what you need is a package that keeps taxes where they are for middle class families, we
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make some stuff spending cuts on things that we don't need, and then we ask the wealthiest americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate. and that's a principle i won't compromise on because i'm not going to have a situation where the wealthiest among us, including folks like me, get to keep all our tax breaks and then we're asking students to pay higher student loans. >> krystal, the republicans are on the run here. the new reel that we get to run every night about the latest republicans saying this is absolutely hopeless is absolutely amazing. limbaugh is an amazing spot tonight saying that he doesn't think that there is any republican that can stop this. >> my favorite has been ann coulter. >> how do you win this if all the rates go up? >> i think they are exactly right. i mean, if you're going to have -- if you're going to get what you want if you're republicans, you have to be able to threaten something, either voter wrath or some legislative
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outcome that they don't want or further down the road the debt ceiling but that's not until further down the road. they just have nowhere to go with this. so i think truly the best thing, the smartest thing for them to do is to go ahead, raise the rates for the upper incomes because they just have nowhere to go in this debate, especially with the public against them the way that it is and because people like limbaugh and ann coulter and various congressional representatives have come out and said, we should go ahead and do this, everybody is going to have cover for at least not going crazy. maybe some of them will vote no but at least not going crazy when rates inevitably go up. >> the president just said the deal that he would like to do would be the tax rates that we know about and then he has this little line in here, make some tough spending cuts on things that we don't need. now, things that you don't need are not tough spending cuts.
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there isn't anything there that's available to be can cut that someone doesn't think we need. >> right. and this is where i think you have to be careful and you can say, sure, the republicans are kind of boxed in here on the tax issue if we get to january 1st and nothing happens, they lose on taxes. either that will happen or they will give in on taxes. that much is true. i think the debt ceiling is very much an issue right now and you can see that in some of the stuff leaking out about the negotiations. specifically, a report out last week said the white house is thinking sort of the basis -- the framework for a deal was coming into focus and that included the top rates for the wealthy going up to 37% in exchange for raising the medicare age from 65 to 67. why, if the rates are already going to go up on january 1st, would you settle for a deal like that at the white house and it's the latest leverage that the republicans have. they are threatening to use the
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debt ceiling like they did in 2011. obama has ruled out, ex split sitly ruled out invoking the 14th amendment. if you're not going to use the 14th amendment and you're dealing with a party that is really intent on ex trablthing concessions on the debt ceiling, you're going to need republican consent to raise the debt ceiling. instead of negotiating over the debt ceiling in january, they are intent of rolling it into these discussions right now. if you're going to include the debt ceiling in this, you are going to have to give something up to the republicans, something like raising the medicare eligibility. that's why if these reports are true, that's why it is in the mix. >> that's why the president said so emphatically last week, i will not play that game on the debt ceiling. it's not that he has any new cards to play. he said he won't do that. but i think, krystal, what he's
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saying he will do is, if you try to hold him up on the debt ceiling like steve just said, he will say to you, i will not do it and i will not negotiate on the debt ceiling and what his leverage is is sanity. his leverage is that everyone now knows that allowing it to crash is an insane act and they will not commit that insanity. >> i think it will be a lot harder for them. last time they were quite credible that they really would commit that sanity. >> they were crazier then and hadn't lost the election yet. >> that's right. it was right after 2010. they were at their height in terms of these new freshman tea party members. the tea party was in full swing. now there is a difference story. boehner does seem to have more control of the caucus and i don't think that they could credibly do it also because the american people have looked back on that whole debacle and said it was a mess, it was the
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republicans fault. the president is going to have the american people on his side in dealing with republicans and the debt ceiling. that's not to say that they are not concerned about it and would like to take it off the table. for one thing, i'm sure the markets are not going to like it if we go through any new debt ceiling debacle but it's not as big of a concern this time around as it was in 2011. >> again, all of this is behind the scenes. we don't really know what the discussions are. i'm giving a lot of credence to what ezra klein wrote because he's plugged in down there in washington. if it's true that raising eligibility for medicare from 65 to 67, there has to be a reason for that. there has to be a big reason for that because those are major concessions. >> let me just say, i don't think there's any chan of this administration to agree to changing the medicare age. absolutely no chance. >> we have a history of them
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dangling it in 2007. >> any chance for debt ceiling he can change either. so that's why i think the president was saying what he was saying about the debt ceiling so clearly because that is the next stage of the fight. >> the other thing i would say, if we are going for that bigger deal where we're going to take on entitlements as well as the tax code, doin see any way that it gets done before january 1st. >> no. that takes at least a year. >> and it's going to be hard for boehner to go along with a tax rate increase if you're going to the democratic caucus with major entitlement reform. i just don't see that happening before january 1. >> it would take month of working the democratic works and the house of representatives to do anything on it. and then you'd never get them for the age increase. krystal ball and steve kornacki, thank you. >> thanks, lawrence. if we do go off the cliff, how long does it take to hit the bottom? and who was the most
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influential politician from the last 30 years? from 1980 until now? tweet me your answers and i will announce it in the rewrite. and then later, k.i.n.d., kids in need of desks. and i'm going to sit here and write a beg check for it at this desk. that's coming up. [ scratching ] you're not using too much are you, hon? ♪ nope. [ female announcer ] charmin ultra soft is so soft you'll have to remind your family they can use less. charmin ultra soft is made with extra cushions that are soft and more absorbent. plus you can use four times less versus the leading value brand. don't worry, there's plenty left for you dad. we all go. why not enjoy the go with charmin ultra soft?
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and keep tweeting your answers about who is the most influential person in politics in the last 30 years? it's probably not who you think
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it is. the answer will be in tonight's rewrite. [ woman ] dear cat, your hair mixes with pollen and dust. i get congested. but now, with zyrtec-d®, i have the proven allergy relief of zyrtec®, plus a powerful decongestant. zyrtec-d® lets me breath freer, so i can love the air. [ male announcer ] zyrtec-d®. behind the pharmacy counter. no prescription needed. you know how painful heartburn can be. for fast, long lasting relief, use doctor recommended gaviscon®. only gaviscon® forms a protective barrier that helps block stomach acid from splashing up- relieving the pain quickly. try fast, long lasting gaviscon®.
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♪ viewers of the show know that the fiscal cliff is not as dramatic as that. it's a fiscal curve, at least at first. but if we go off and stay off the fiscal curve, we will eventually hit the recession
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cliff. on "meet the press" sunday there were different opinions about whether congressional republicans or president obama would be blamed if there is a recession. >> we've got to get this behind us once and for all. >> i don't want to do it, the president doesn't want to do it, but we need to solve the problem. we cannot allow the reckless position to drive us into a recession, a recession which the republicans will own. >> this does real damage to the economy and to millions of people if going over the cliff. this is not an abstraction. the polls support him that the republicans will own this recession, will last about one month because presidents own recessions. presidents own dramatic improvements and things. we live in the obama era, not the john boehner -- >> joining me now is robert
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rice, professor at the university of california, berkeley. professor reich, we know that the fiscal cliff is january 1st. if we went off and stayed off, didn't do any legislative repair to it, where do you think the recession cliff would be? >> lawrence, worst-case scenario, probably by the end of january tacks are clearly going up on the middle class, also major program cuts in discretionary spending are kicking in. there's not too much that the administration can do in terms of front-loading anymore because you've got to -- assuming that there's no deal at all, you've got to make some adjustment with regard to your spending and your spending is going to be cut. that means that you're setting up the economy for a recession maybe by march, maybe by april. we also have very powerful headwinds coming from europe
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that is in recession because it bought into austerity economics and that's what we would be buying into in a very big way if nothing changed. we also have china that is slowing down. globally and also domestically there is not enough demand to keep the economy going and i would say the worst scenario of all -- i don't think it's going to happen, but probably by march we're going to see some real problems in the economy if nothing happens. >> i think you and i agree if we do go off the cliff, so to speak, on january 1st, that the negotiations to fix this problem would begin somewhere around january 2nd? >> probably the 8:00 a.m. the morning of january 2nd. they are going on right now. >> yes. >> there is probably a slightly better than 50/50 chance that there will be a deal before december 18th. assuming that we're close to a deal, i think it's going to happen right away and the
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democrats are going to be preparing legislation and it's going to be introduced right away, january 2nd, to make a middle class tax cut retroactive to january 1st. >> yes. exactly. and i think one of the striking things that we're not hearing right now are a stand your ground republicans in the house or in the senate. we're hearing a lot of voices, a lot of cracks in the wall of republican members saying, look, i think we better just go along with this rate thing. let's just get this rate thing done. i don't hear other republicans rushing to the microphone saying absolutely not, under no circumstances we won't do it. >> no. actually, the republican ettifice is cracking. it's polling pressure, public pressure. it's the kind of pressure that a democracy that proves that -- we are in a democracy, we are still in a democracy, notwithstanding the extraordinary power of big money. we did have an election but i think the republicans are most persuaded by all of the internal polling that they are doing showing that they would be
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blamed if tax rates went up or at least the middle class just simply did not get a continue weighing of the bush tax cuts and that is causing them enormous heartache. i think that's the civil war that's been going on in the republican party since the election and, frankly, boehner and the slightly more level-headed members of that republican caucus are winning the day. >> it's my view that all of the president's budget negotiations with republicans have led us to this point. and i actually was of the view that when he did go along with the extension of bush tax cuts two years ago that it was as good of a deal as he possibly have gotten to go forward with this and it seems to me the tremendous strategic advantage that he has and even rush limbaugh concedes he has is something that he has master fully over time attained while
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by the press being criticized for not being a leader. >> i think that's absolutely right, lawrence. but the president since the election has done something that he didn't do in previous negotiations during the first four years. he has very dramatically and very, very powerfully gone to the public, continued the campaign, essentially continued the same kind of campaign he had leading up to the election. this time it's raising tax rates on the rich and basically putting republicans back to where they came from. basically saying, we won. i won this election. you won this election and we are going to move forward on the agenda that we had in this election. this is something that the president has not done before nearly as effectively. one more point, lawrence, and that is that unfortunately we are still, even though the president won, even though he's winning on this strategic issue, we're still playing on the goal posts and within the field established by the republicans and that is the deficit
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reduction is the most important challenge facing the economy. >> yes. yes. >> and the most important challenge facing the economy is jobs. jobs. more jobs. economic growth. it is not deficit reduction and i think hopefully the president, when he wins this particular scrimmage, will pivot to the issue of jobs. >> robert reich, i'm so glad you made that last point. thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you very much, lawrence. coming up, republican soul searching continues. a new company has been in job of trying to figure out why republicans lost the last election. someone should tell them that they can find archived versions of this program at thelastword.msnbc.come. and the most influential person in politics in the last 30 years, from reagan until now? the answer is in the rewrite a
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who's the most influential person in american politics in the last 30 years? from 1980 till now? was it ronald reagan, bill clinton, george w. bush, barack obama, hillary clinton? none of the above? the answer is coming up in tonight's rewrite. you won't take my life.
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we had a lot of candidates, quite frankly, that did dumb things out there. once the candidate wins the primary, becomes the republican nomination, the republican party has an obligation to that candidate. i don't think the republican
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party schooled their candidates very well or supported their candidates very well. we had at least two candidates that should have won that, frankly, lost because they said something stupid on the subject that their party's leaders should have schooled them to stay away from in the first place. >> that was dick armey. in the spotlight tonight, republicans soul searching. mitt romney's soul search to him to vegas at a boxing match. the republican national committee announced today the creation of the growth and opportunity project, a five-member independent committee that will consider what the republican party did wrong and make suggestions on how to fix it. at least one republican thinks that they won't be able to fix their problems by 2016 and be competitive in the next presidential campaign.
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>> if their competitor in owe 16 is going to be hillary clinton and supported by a still popular barack obama, trying to win that will be truly the super bowl and the republican party is incapable of competing at that level. >> ari, big surprise, rush limbaugh did not like that. he did not like newt gingrich saying that hillary is unbeatable. let's listen to rush. >> we can't beat her. here we are on december 10th, 2012, and we can't beat hillary in a presidential campaign in 2016. i didn't know any of this. in fact, i don't even think this is a campaign now. it's a cornonation. >> he kept talking about it after the show. he's much more negative about where the republicans stand now than he had time to go into on
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"meet the press" yesterday. >> yes. >> and he said he's trying to figure it out. he's thoughtfully taking time to contemplate. >> he's a politician. he takes failure, he takes losses seriously. you had that time with him a couple weeks ago. he made the statement that he's underestimated barack obama twice, once last time when he thought he would lose to hillary who we just saw him praising and once this time. i think this really goes to the rethinking that the republican party has to do. the l.a. raiders used to say that only the intimidators get intimidated. newt gingrich has a different view here. the entire trend of history is moving against this party as currently constructed. >> and remember, newt was the republican presidential candidate who got immigration right. he was the one who wasn't going over there. let's listen to more of what he said on "meet the press". >> i think this is much more
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than mitt romney. we didn't blow it because of mitt romney. we blew it because of a party that is refusing to think through what the average american needs for a better future. >> and the reality of american life includes this undocumented population which newt wanted to do something humane about and got actually booed once or twice for saying that. we now see a rush toward the center, presumably, on some kind of immigration reform with republicans. >> right. i think we see a rush on every issue that has to do with sort of the core fabric of liberalism in american life, which is equal rights and opportunity for all. liberals have always gone to the mat for that but brought the country with them. we're seeing that in having a humane policy and seeing that in equality for marriage and we're going to see that go up to the supreme court and conservatives are going to have a hard time
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figuring out how to react to that and deal with the justice and politics of it. >> hillary clinton, if she wants people to be quiet about 2016, it's not working. she -- i have not seen a situation where four years ahead of time a party has had such a clear nonincumbent front-runner for a nomination. >> and part of it cuts against i think one of the most misunderstood things about the last cycle which there was so legitimate he can assignment about barack obama, many people forget that was a 51-49 primary. not only the base that believed in her that time around but then what is accruing is that she is loyal to president obama and deserves a shot if we get there. >> ari melber, thank you for
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joining me tonight. >> thanks. next, who is the most influential person in american politics in the last 30 years? and later, i'm going to sit here and write a big check on tv. [ male announcer ] when ziggy the cat appeared at their door, he opened up jake's very private world. at first, jake's family thought they saved ziggy, but his connection with jake has been a lifesaver. for a love this strong, his family only feeds him iams. compared to other leading brands, it has 50% more animal protein... ...to help keep ziggy's body as strong as a love that reaches further than anyone's words. iams. keep love strong. that reaches further than anyone's words. capella university understands back from rough economic times.
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was a reagan, was it clinton, was it bush? which clinton, which bush? or was it someone else? the most influential person in american politics in the last 30 years? the answer is next in the rewrite and so far only about four of you have gotten the correct answer on twitter. and later, you saw me vote on tv. tonight you'll see me write a big check on tv. they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the strength of a global financial leader. the heart of a one-to-one relationship.
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that's three times more than me! [ female announcer ] ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat. in blueberry/pomegranate and peach. [ speaking in spanish ] >> the answer is lloyd bridges or -- >> lloyd bridges. >> si, lloyd bridges. >> in tonight's episode of who is more macho? ronald reagan, the first president bush, president bill clinton, or the man who will never be president, newt gingrich? who among those four men has had the most important and lasting
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influence on our politics and our governing? republicans will all say ronald reagan and they will all be wrong because they no longer understand ronald reagan or themselves. no one will say one-term president george h.w. bush and everyone will be right about that. democrats will say bill clinton and they will be wrong. that leaves the last man standing, newt gingrich. i think that i can safely assume that none of you chose newt gingrich as the person who had the most lasting and influential on our politics and governing. and that is because the american media covers the presidency the way the british covers the monarchy. they pretend that we have a king, that nobody could possibly be more important than the president. the media simply refuses to comprehend how powerful congress is and how powerful the speaker of the house can be, something
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that the founding fathers discovered. why are republicans wrong when they say that reagan was such a great president? because nothing of reaganism survived his presidency. there is no reagan legacy. republicans lie to themselves and they try to lie to history about reagan being an anti-tax fanatic like republicans have become but they raised taxes 11 time as presidents, that's ten times more than bill clinton raised taxes as president. ronald reagan also cut taxes as president. so what was reagan? a tax raiser or a tax cutter? the answer is both. and the tax raiser side of reagan would be condemned in today's republican party. much was made this year on this program and elsewhere that ronald reagan could not possibly
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have won the republican nomination for president in 2012 without changing his positions on everything. bill clinton left nothing after his presidency. no democratic legislative monument. bill clinton had a cooperative congress, democratic congress for only two of his eight years. in those two years, the most important legislative achievements he accomplished were two trade bills and one budget bill. the two international trade bills had been mostly negotiated by the republican presidents before him and had strong support from republicans and democrats. the north american free trade agreement and the world free trade agreement that created the wto are the most important things left standing today from the clinton presidency. in his first year, clinton bravely pushed through a democratic congress with no republican votes, a hugely important deficit reduction bill, half of which was the largest tax increase in history.
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the other half of which were the largest set of medicare cuts in history as of that time. clinton's final six years as president left him as a relatively minor editor of a republican congress' budgets. the clinton presidency also brought us don't ask, don't tell, which is no longer with us, and the defense of marriage act which the obama administration now refuses to defend in court. and so as soon as president clinton was out of office, the tax code he had rewritten to be more progressive was immediately rewritten by this guy to be less progressive. when george w. bush rewrote the clinton tack rates tax rates to be friendlier to the rich, some democrat in the house and in the senate voted for the new tax rates. there was no lasting clintonian to hold against the bush tax
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cuts. some democrats voted for the bush tax rates. so nothing of reaganism, whatever that was, lived after the reagan presidency and nothing of clintonism lived after the clinton's presidency. what, then, of gingrichism, newt gingrich was in congress during all three of the presidencies we've considered here. reagan, the first bush, and clinton. during the republican years when republicans started drifting towards agreements to raise taxes, newt gingrich attacked those republicans. he wasn't willing to take on president reagan head on but in 1984 he actually called senator bob dole, quote, the tax collector for the welfare state. never mind that senator dole was doing president reagan's legislative bidding. he was condemned by then junior congressman gingrich just for
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considering tax increase. when bill clinton pushed for the tax increase that he got in 1993, newt gingrich said, quote, the tax increase will kill jobs. newt was opposed to all tax increases but he knew he couldn't simply say, i'm opposed to all tax increases. he had to come up with a reason. a reason that he could sell at least to other republicans. republicans who had voted for tax increases before. the tax increase will kill jobs. newt gingrich, who was not then the leader of the republicans in the house of representatives controlled every republican vote and every republican vote in the senate on bill clinton's deficit reduction bill. and because it cut spending but raised taxes, every republican in the house and the senate voted against it. they voted the way newt gingrich wanted them to vote. the same republicans who a few
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years earlier were negotiating with democrat overtax increases under president reagan would not even discuss any form of a compromise on the clinton tax bill for fear of being caught by newt gingrich considering a tax increase. for fear of being labeled the tax collector of the welfare state. on friday, john boehner said this about the tax increase on the top income tax brackets that president obama want. quote, i oppose tax rate increases because tax rate increases cost american jobs. every republican you have ever heard opposing tax increases in the last 20 years has used words de dictated to them by newt gingrich. not one republican is left who use the reagan concept as keep taxes as low as possible but
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raise them as little as possible when necessary. there is not one republican left in congress who is a reaganite on taxes. all of them are gingrichites. how strong is the policy of opposing any and all taxes? there is exactly one republican left in the house of representatives who voted for the last tax increase compromise that any republican voted for. the one president george h.w. bush signed into law in 1990. exactly one. the gingrich anti-tax legacy is more powerful than anything president reagan and president clinton left behind. gingrich did not just give republicans a permanent talking point, the tax increase will kill jobs. he gave them a belief, a near religious belief the tax increase will kill jobs. he gave them the first
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commandment of rebublicanism, all tax increases must be opposed and must be condemned as job killers. and so john boehner today remains trapped, not by tea party conservatism but by gingrichism, the most lasting and powerful force in our politics of the last 30 years. here's what else newt gingrich said in 1993, opposing the clinton tack increase. quote, the tax increase will kill jobs and lead to a recession and the recession will force people off of work and on to unemployment and will actually increase the deficit. of course newt was completely wrong about that, as i pointed out to him yesterday on "meet the press" but in the realm of religious belief, nothing is provable. there are no facts. newt gingrich suffered a lot of humiliation on his road to losing the presidential
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nomination. the political media will forever regard him as a loser and ronald reagan as a winner and bill clinton as a winner but a winner of what? it turns up, newt gingrich was playing a longer game than either win of those presidents ever could and so, yes, it's newt gingrich who had the most important and lasting influence on our politics and on our governing. more so than any of the presidents he served under. and every word, every word john boehner says to president obama about taxes now, every word was written for him by newt gingrich. [ man ] ring ring... progresso
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since i asked for your help last week in getting out the word about the k.i.n.d. fund, kids in need of desks, with your contributions we have raised $206,490. that's enough to buy about 230 desk made by workers in malawi. about 9,000 students will be using those desks when they arrive at classrooms and they will stay in classrooms for many years. so those 9,000 students will easily become 50,000 student and that's just what we've been able to do in the last week alone. better tools, a better education, that most basic tool, a desk, a place to sit, a place to read, a place to learn. since i partnered with unicef with the k.i.n.d. fund, we have
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raised $4,734,944. you have filled me with awe each year and i am getting hesitant to tell you how much we have raised because it might sound like we have all the money we need. we don't. if i could bring you with me to see schools without a single desk, you would know that we need every desk we can possibly pay for. every one. and at the pace we're going, more r we're more than a generation alone for providing desks for every classroom in malawi. i will be asking for your help for kids in need of desks. tonight, i want to introduce a new option you will have in contributing to the can k.i.n.d. fund and that is a tuition program i've been working on with unicef for over a year now. some of the better schools in malawi charge a tuition, a small tuition, which means that some
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of the student who would thrive in those schools cannot attend those schools. it's especially difficult for girls to attend those schools. a family is more likely to spend it on a son than a daughter. only 7% of girls in malawi complete their high school education. in the rural areas of the country, girls are only 9% of all secondary school student. we've decided to do what we can to help girls stay in schools and stay in the better schools and so the new option you will have when you go to our website will be the option of donating to our girls' tuition program in malawi. and joining me now to discuss our hopes for our new k.i.n.d. tuition fund is my senior partner, carol stern, president and ceo of the u.s. fund for for
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unicef. thank you for joining me. >> it's great to be back. >> this is something that we started in your conference room in the unicef offices in malawi almost a year and a half ago and the girls' education issue is really critical there. i think what happened in pakistan shows how important it is for education. >> only 7% of girls complete secondary school there and we know a girl who finishes her education is less likely to contract hiv, less likely to be forced into prostitution or trafficked or even forced to marry early. it's an investment in a girl's entire future. it really is. >> it's one of the best schools that i saw in the capital city was the highest and we've calculated that the package that they need is roughly $177 a year. >> for the year. >> yes. and that includes room and
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board. that includes a lot of these kids -- they are not necessarily boarding schools but they live so far away, their village is so far away, they have to rent little rooms in these other villages to stay in and so we're incorporating that. >> which is actually really critical because oftentimes if a girl gets the privilege to go, the only way she has to make money is to sell herself. so you are giving them a full life. >> yeah. and the -- i want to get it started tonight and i want to get it started with a check from me that i will fill out, finish filling out right here. i'm going to get the tuition fund started with $25,000. >> thank you so much. >> and that will give us 150 tuitions for the coming year and we'll go up from there. >> well, you know, i don't even know what to say to you. the campaign to date has been so